Bad Ideas: Please Rule Responsibly
by Known Unknown
Summary: The trouble all started when - against all odds - Chu managed to win the Makai tournament. Four years later, the Makai awakes to the biggest hangover in demon history... Rated T for Language.


**Disclaimer:** Yu Yu Hakusho belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi, Viz and Pierrot Co. Ltd. None of those have anything to do with me.

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**Bad Ideas: Please Rule Responsibly**

The trouble all started when - against all odds - Chu managed to win the Makai Tournament.

Historians will never be entirely clear on how he pulled it off - Chu is a powerful demon, no doubt, but he was hardly the heaviest hitter in all Makai. But there were some easy theories - what with the massive "congrats on being King for four years, but we kinda want your job" party Yusuke's gang of misfits threw for Enki – and by extension, the rest of Raizen's band of misfits – on the eve of the competition.

Everyone who was anyone in Demon World was there, even warriors who had elected not to put in their bid for royalty this go-round: Kurama, it was said, was focusing on his human family these days, but would still attend for spirit purposes. Only Yusuke was allowed to call him a cheerleader and remain unseeded with flesh eating plants.

And speaking of spirits, Urameshi had put Chu in charge of refreshments. Which made the whole thing Yusuke's fault, really.

Two days later, after some consideration it was deemed that Chu hadn't _intentionally_ sabotaged his competition. Who could have predicted that his secret stash of highest grade demon moonshine would be so powerful it could make Yomi see again – but only in endless, unknowable colors that could drive lower demons mad? Who would think it would make Hiei sing fiery showtunes, let alone make Mokuro sob to hear them?

Certainly not Chu. He drank this stuff for breakfast, sometimes literally.

But more importantly, who would have thought that anyone who didn't have an affinity for alcohol – like Chu, and pretty much _only_ Chu – would stay drunk for _several days_ after, ruining their fighting performance?

Again, not Chu. The truth was, he had totally blundered into the perfect preemptive strike. Poor Jin crashed into the ground – thinking it was just a very brown sky – _sixteen times, _and he was just an average case. Enki was downright catatonic the whole time.

The review board deemed it the most brilliant stratagem ever known in the history of demonkind, and declared his rule legitimate on the spot. Though it should be mentioned that they were still totally hammered at the time too? By the time anyone realized this was an awful state of affairs, it was too late to change a thing.

Naturally, Chu's first royal action as King, Ruler and Grand Poobah of Demon World (now legally the title) was give out free celebratory drinks to every single demon alive - and triple for anyone currently a King - to raucous applause.

Once he got a nice buzz going, that's when he really started to take it serious: with a grin the size of a bear trap, he formally decreed that the serving of drinks would be mandatory for every major meeting between demons (and heavily suggested for when you were just saying hi) – and not just the weak little shots diplomats like Yomi sometimes served for politeness' sake, but big bottles of the strong stuff. This came with a pledge to hire a hundred thousand lower apparitions to serve as official royal beer bearers and distribute an eternal happy hour to the masses.

Since everyone was now twice as drunk, they applauded twice as hard the second time. After that, things got a little hazy…

About four mental minutes after that, he woke up to the worst hangover he had ever had – and that's saying something. Rinku wasn't making things any better, what with shouting his ear off with cockamamie stories with babble about fire and riots and a roaring good time. He didn't have time for that nonsense.

"Not now, you little bludger," shoving a hiccupping Rinku aside. "It's time to start me first day as King."

Now, Chu knew himself pretty well, so he knew he had a tendency to over look the important stuff from time to time. And being halfway responsible – not really, but he liked to try – he decided to at least check out what the pipsqueak was yammering about. So, he took a gander out the window just to be sure.

The first thing he noticed was not the neverending sea of red, no. It was the fact that the beautiful brimstone sky of demon world was dark, the glowing embers below it aside. Wasn't it supposed to be morning?

"Me first… evening, as king?" He said, blinking. This didn't bode well for his royal countenance – he figured he ought to start working on that.

He checked the clock – demon work clocks being fairly different from the usual mortal fare. Demon lives were significantly longer than human existences, at least when said demons were stupid enough to get themselves beheaded or unlucky enough to be born to demons with a fondness for severed heads. So a typical demon world clock didn't just show the time, but the year, the decade, the century, even the millennium for some of the older crowd. Raizen had one that went into the ten thousands, but then he was an optimistic sort of guy before he went on the Makai's greatest hunger strike.

In any case, Chu took a look at the time… which was normal. Sure, it was evening, but it wasn't too much of a loss. Then he took a gander at the other dials…

"Me first… _four years_ as king?!"

That definitely explained Rinku's aggravated mood. How the hell did a tough guy like Chu take lose a whole four whole years? Utter nonsense: for it to be that long after, if would have to mean he got so drunk that…

… oh. right. Well, it was worth it. That was _some_ afterparty.

Actually, he couldn't help but be a bit proud. Chu had gotten seriously hammered in his time, but he had never misplaced near to half a decade before. It had to be some kind of record.

It didn't seem like such a big deal. In fact, that mean the Makai Tournament was starting again soon – time to get back to training. He had to get back to build if he wanted to face off against the big boys again – specially against Yusuke – so the first order of kingly business had to be making for the gym…

But then Rinku – the annoying nag - grabbed his boot, and nearly tripped him up. The brat kept on whining about "serious shit" and "horrible atrocities" – the sober bloke's words for "all in good fun," if you asked Chu.

"Come off it, you nuisance!" He grumbled. "I already looked own the damn window, what else do ya want?"

Just to placate the… kid? He wasn't always sure. But just to give him some peace of mind, he looked out the window again, though he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be…

Oh, _right._ The fire.

It was actually pretty impressive. Sure, most of it was the usual red stuff. But some of it was black as night – no guesses as to what caused that. And there was blue in there, green, orange, purple… all sorts of colors that disqualified Hiei as the sole one to blame. It was intoxicating to look at.

But then, intoxication had gotten them into this mess. And if he'd somehow made it so _all_ of demon world was on fire, Chu supposed he would have to go out and clean up the damage before he had any fun. It's not like the entireworld was _really_ part of the problem. How bad could it be, right?

To answer the question, lots. First of all, while it wasn't _all_ of the Makai, it was most of it. Second, it turned out this fire was not new. In fact, it was celebrating its second birthday next week. Some demons had gotten so used to it that they made a fight out of it being extinguished. And it took two tries, because the first time Chu tried to use some of his secret stash to douse the flame, which just turned a big chunk of his kingdom into a crater – something for his successor to deal with, of course. The second time, they had to boot Touya up to the fore to help cool down the flames – after a search, Chu's guards found the ex-shinobi drinking martinis in the palace's cellar and throwing icicles at random targets, rambling about honor. It wasn't hard to get him to throw icicles at a big flaming target instead, but that just led to the third problem: a sloshed Hiei was squatting in the middle of the flames, having apparently stumbled out of Makuro's realm one day and never found his way back, and he didn't take to having his warm, deadly blanket taken from him.

At least he got to see Touya and Hiei fight. Chu had always wanted to see that. And in the end, they still got it down. It took over a day, but at least it happened. By the time they got back, Chu was tired – and Rinku was not helping.

It should be noted that Rinku was not actually sober. It's just that the mouthy kid somehow turned out to be a meticulous drunk who remembered every terrible detail of every horrible thing in shocking, intense clarity. And he never… shut… up.

Halfway though the _fifth_ story about how he nearly drowned in what they now called "the River of Vomit" (once the main street from the palace), Chu realized that he should probably get someone else up to help straighten this mess out… which is to say, he needed to get up to speed on what was going on with his friends, his allies or even any random folks he'd run into in this long bender called life. He was slowly starting to get the impression that he might need a bit of help on this one.

First things first: Urameshi. Rinku said he actually _loved_ the new policy and was over at the palace at least once a month for partying, brawling and the occasional soul searching journey of truth (the philosophical revelations alone might have revolutionized all three worlds, had the only records not burned up and everyone involved not immediately forgotten what they were). But that all came to a stop once his old lady found out – Keiko actually came into demon world herself, grabbed Yusuke and dragged him back through to the other side. The files don't mention him after that, except for a few trace notes about a secret royal visit to the human world that Koenma has classified all records of for some reason.

So, a no go on the everyone's favorite dual-species delinquent. Kurama was his obvious second choice anyway – in fact, to any responsible person he would've been the first choice. Chu remembered seeing him at the victory party, and _nobody_ left that shindig sober – not even the world's calmest fox. But surely someone as reserved as Kurama could control himself…

Then he did some digging. Again, the answer was no.

As it found, Kurama was currently on a self-imposed exile in the border regions between the realms. Chu isn't clear on the specifics, but apparently after making the mistake of trying a small sip of Chu's strongest stuff (let it never be said the world's calmest fox wasn't foolish enough to take a dare) he ended up stumbling home in a drunken haze and confessed every last detail of his demon secrets to his human family. Which, from what little Chu learned of Kurama's personal life while training under Genkai, was a big no-no.

He then collapsed and had to be rushed to a mortal hospital for what the best doctors – at least the best ones who weren't incognito under false faces – could only call "sudden onset liver disintegration." It turned out Chu's secret stash was not the best for demons residing in mortal bodies. Luckily, Kurama was tough to kill.

The fox ran for it the moment he realized what he'd done, without even saying goodbye… which was ironic given that his family believed he had just made the whole thing up in a drunken haze. Since he hasn't spoken to them since, he had no idea how they actually took it - hence the "living like a hermit in the wilds demon world for as long as he can get away with it" idea. Supposedly his mother tracked down their human friend Kuwabara, who called Yusuke to complain about being the middleman, who kept leaving messages to complain to _Chu_, who – and he had no memories of this – then sent a bunch of singing demon-grams to Kurama's hidey hole that were never seen again.

Obviously, the fox demon was not happy. Chu made a mental note to expect some kind of dumasian revenge from his ex-mentor/employer one of these days. According to Rinku, Kurama sometimes came to the palace – twigs and leaves woven in his hair – and did his best to, as Rinku put it, "help keep everyone alive for as long he could" (as long as nobody mentioned his family, ever), so who knows what kind of manipulations he could have been setting up in that time. Chu was considering it a miracle he had made it out the front door at all without losing a leg to a daisy, but it was a good strategy not to get to close to any foliage for a while.

Though on the other hand, since he had three years to fix it and the whole of Makai was _still_ on fire, maybe Kurama's head wasn't in the game these days. Either way, it probably wasn't smart to try and cross that bridge right now.

Since all evidence pointed to the fire being Hiei's fault, plus he and Touya were still brawling even as he pondering this over, calling him clearly wasn't going to work. It was probably a miracle they could even find him in the first place. At least the three eyed hothead would make a good patsy if any sober angry mobs went after Chu… and they would, of course, because no one would ever believe he wasn't responsible.

So the big three were out. But he did still have other allies he could count on. Or… so he thought.

Jin was found sleeping off _his_ four-year-long night on a cloud, and refused to come down for anything. He did shout something about a rematch to a contest Chu didn't remember happening but was _absolutely_ game for doing again.

Suzuka had weaseled his way into being named Demon World's Chief of Exports (a position that didn't even exist) and started a business trading demonic liquor to the human world, which got him thrown into a spirit world prison. He would probably need rescuing soon – once Kurama wasn't sulking any more.

Shishiwakamaru, on the other hand, was in the hospital: he apparently tried to eat his sword in an attempt to give himself the banshee shriek ability. Chu took a look at his medical chart, and decided he would have to ask Shishi how he pulled of surviving have all his vital organs self-destruct like that. Preferably the next time they were both drunk – which could be soon, given that Chu had yet to actually abolish any of his catastrophic laws.

So that left out all his friends, except Rinku of course. And most of the people he knew who _could _help were… not likely to. But he was desperate, so he tried any way.

Yomi left. Immediately. And that didn't mean he holed himself up in his castle and avoided politics for four years. He grabbed his son and literally left the demon realm entirely in favor of a less dangerous environment. Last reports say he was staying in some human place called the Sahara. Chu had never heard of it, but Rinku passed on Kurama's word on the subject: something along the lines of "only Yomi would choose years in the harshest climates over even a moment's loss of inhibition."

Whatever. Chu always thought that guy was a bore.

On the other hand, Makuro had been seen _everywhere_. Apparently, much like Chu she was a scrapper when she got seriously wasted, but with her it was less "bullheaded brawling" and more "tyranny, torture and senseless destruction." Mostly, she just randomly showed up at the estates of strong demons, challenging them to fight for their honor or die – most demons can't pass up an idiotic offer like that when they're _sober_. It was easier to count the _survivors_ at this point.

"She might've started the wars back up again if everyone hadn't been too hammered to care," Rinku had whined.

"All the more reason to be grateful they were!" Chu replied, much to Rinku's dismay.

Still, after a four year reign of terror and madness even Chu had to admit a drunk Makuro wasn't a good thing for anybody – and that hurt to concede, as it went against every single principle Chu believed in. He would need a salve for that one, and probably for the inevitable backlash. Makuro, of course, blamed everything on the King, which struck Chu as being distinctly unfair.

Enki was still completely unresponsive. The rest of Raizen's old buddies had formed some kind of vigil around him, which meant that they had literally spent the last four years reminiscing like the tipsy devils they were - only Kokou was capable of lucid thought at this point, and it turned out she didn't give a crap. Chu actually went up to see them in person: mostly to try and get his bonny sheila Natsume to listen to reason, but she just stabbed him. Go figure.

So it was fairly clear that no help was coming (and that practically everyone was going to be lining up to aggravate his stab wound once this was over). This meant only the one thing: Chu would have to step up as the kingly sort he was, bite the bullet and do damage control for all the disasters by himself. That is to say, one at a damn time. And before he did, he was forced to undo all those fun laws he'd passed just so "things wouldn't get worse" - as Rinku slurred - and double abolish the extra-fun ones he couldn't remember passing, which _also_ went against all his principles.

Sure, this was the Makai – this was supposed to feel like hell – but there was a limit! He really needed a drink by the end of it, and nobody would give him one. He was the King, dammit!

It was just one crisis after another. Seemed Koenma had sanctioned the Makai at some point, because Chu had tried to fly a zeppelin through the barrier between worlds. Chu didn't even know where a demon could get a zeppelin, but he wished he could remember.

Then he found out he'd reinstated the Dark Tournament at some point, which was nice. He also restructured the whole thing into some kind of extreme drinking contest, which was better. But they were still tallying up the survivors on that one too, which wasn't so great. And they were happy to let him take over…

… but before he could, he had to get Risho out of the palace before the idiot tried to turn the whole place into his personal island. Chu couldn't believe the nerve: the so-called ninja survives _one_ encounter with a sentimental mortal and suddenly he thought he owned the place. He was about to mention this to his "assistant," only to find that Rinku decided in that moment to defect from Chu's authority and join Risho's "glorious objective" making things twice as hard. He was half sure the half-pint had sobered up and was just messing with him at this point, but who could tell?

After that, it wasn't into the forests to convince Kurama to go home. He _did,_ in fact, lose a leg doing that one, and it didn't even work! Chu had no idea how mortals lived without demonic healing... though a good whisky helped.

And that was just the fist day. In short, it was a shitstorm no matter how you sliced it. So Chu did the one thing he knew to do in situations like this: took a drink and dove right in, come what may…

They did eventually get everything sorted out. The Royal Beer Bearers were abolished. The riots were calmed down. Stomach pumps and blood purification were made available in every demon town and village – except the Ice Maidens, because to the Stygian depths with them. Even the fire – once prophesized to be eternal and unyielding by expert drunken prophets – was forgotten in time... though Chu kept one bit of kindling left as a souvenir of his magnificent term in office.

Sadly, all this work meant that Chu was unable to fight in the tournament again this year. Not just because he hadn't had any time to train, but because once the demons of the Makai were sober again, they… had much to complain about. Chu spent the bulk of the tournament in bed at a demon hospital (which was much like mortal hospitals, except sometimes the surgeons ripped out your organs for no reason), listening to Koto and Rinku laugh at him from the commentators booth.

It was nigh-unanimously decided by every demon in attendance – except Yusuke – that Chu would no longer ever be eligible to win the tournament, in perpetuity. He could fight – Yusuke got no opposition on that one, probably because so many demons wanted to rip Chu's mohawk off – but even if he placed first he wouldn't be accepted, ever.

They did still let him handle refreshments for the tournament afterparty, though. But that came with the most horrible punishment of all. He was still in traction, so the emmisaries – Yomi's men, never a good sight – had to read it to him in his bed: Chu could stock the party with any secret stash or exotic booze he could find, he could hire any performance he wanted, pay with royal funds for any feast he deemed worthy – in fact, it was expected.

But throughout the whole event he – and only he – would have to remain sober though every single moment. The designated demon, if you would.

His tortured screams would be heard throughout the Makai. It was not, it seems, good to be the King…

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**Author's Note:** Bad Ideas is a "series" that poses the question: what if, instead of doing the right thing or the canon thing, the characters did something _really_ stupid instead? Like, say, put Chu in charge of everything.

"Series" is in quotes because, while I do have another idea for this series, I really just wrote this to kill a little writers' block and may or may not continue it past this and the following idea. Who knows, maybe something else will strike me.


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